Spring time brings higher water levels in the streams, brooks, and rivers in the area. This makes for a great opportunity to capture waterfalls and babbling brooks. The trick to these shots is a long shutter speed, which blurs the flowing water, giving it that silky smooth look. The effect will start to appear at around a 5 second exposure; the photo above is a 30 second exposure. To get exposures this long you will want to reduce your ISO (100), use a larger aperture (f11), and shoot in low-light. Typically it is best to shoot these photos in early morning or late evening. Adding a neutral density (ND) filter will allow you to shoot in brighter conditions. This photo was shot with a 10 stop ND filter at around 10am. Finally, long exposures such as this will require a tripod or resting the camera on a solid surface.
Great art in this image and technical wizardry.
I have however never seen this in nature. Not sure such wizardry connects me with nature.
Photography is more than recording what is there, but also what is felt. Capturing a freeze frame of a flowing river does not record the feeling of flowing water. A long exposure does much better. One might call it a cross between a motion picture and a still photo. I look at Brendan’s photos and wish I had some that I could post also. Here, Brendan even tells his secrets.
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